In today's voicemail systems, when a caller receives a message there is often no associated information identifying the calling party that left the message. Systems have been developed that provide the calling number (or name) as a verbal message that is part of the voicemail message, but those systems are relatively slow and cumbersome to use.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,590,965 to Poole et al. discloses a voice mail system that offers a verbal announcement of name and number information when a subscriber reviews a mailbox. When a user selects an option to listen to received messages, the system provides an announcement of associated data, such as the name and number of the caller, as a synthesized speech signal to the subscriber. A voice processing unit runs a speech synthesis program to convert the caller ID text data to digitized audio. Alternatively, the subscriber may request the synthesized speech data while reviewing messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,785,368 to Eason et al. discusses an on-demand caller ID service wherein a voicemail response system repeats the telephone numbers and/or names associated with calling parties over a predetermined time period. The information is delivered as text-to-speech audio. The caller ID information is not associated with voice messages.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,397 to Gabin et al. discloses a network-assisted callback system wherein a subscriber who has missed a call dials an 800 number. The network accesses information about the caller that has been stored, in some embodiments including stored caller ID information. The system can automatically connect with the last calling party.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,709 to Sheerin discloses a method for programming a home answering machine to use caller ID data to automatically route individual messages to selected mailboxes, based on stored criteria.
There remains a need for a system that presents caller ID data to a subscriber in a way that is convenient and useable, is not time-consuming, and permits the review of the data without the need to listen to messages.